On Parodies and Special Guest Stars
by Charity Angel
Summary: In which Dean dreams a dream. (kind of RPF crossover... ish...). Set before Angel Heart. No real S10 spoilers


_With apologies to The Hillywood Show._

* * *

There was music blaring as Dean came round. Taylor Swift, that treasonous part of his brain that liked her pointed out. Only… Only it wasn't – it was a guy singing, and… the lyrics seemed slightly different. And boy how he hated that he knew that. But he couldn't put his finger on what was wrong with them.

The ground under him didn't seem like, well, _ground_. Dean was long-accustomed to regaining consciousness on less than stellar surfaces, and this wasn't one. He had definitely slept on worse than this padded, slightly scratchy something. It felt like rough, woven wool under his cheek; the kind that upholstered chairs in public places where you wanted to keep your guests happy, but not too happy.

It didn't smell too bad, either: no blood, guts or stale urine in the air. No funky animal smells either. Not necessarily hospital clean, but definitely not disgusting. And God knew Dean had seen and smelled enough of the dirty places of the world to be something of an expert.

So he opened his eyes to find… Lights. Lots and lots of lights. A camera or two. Loads of people. A film set? Maybe? And, bustling about, right in the middle of the action, in the middle of the black-suited people, was a familiar trench coat.

He opened his mouth to say something, but… that trench was on a tiny person. Seriously, okay, so Cas was a bit shorter than Dean, but he wasn't _that_ short. Cas was still pretty tall: he was about six foot. That person, with their back to Dean, was a midget.

He pushed himself to his feet warily, using the chairs in front to help him. Yep, something was very wrong here. Those hands weren't his. They definitely weren't his. They were little and slender and…

He grabbed desperately at his crotch, fumbling for… oh _crap_.

Once upon a time, he would have blamed this on an archangel, but there were none of those in play any more: two dead, the other two stuck in Hell. Or even, once, Balthazar had pulled off some kind of crap like this when he had thrown them into that crazy world where their lives were televisual viewing pleasure for a small but dedicated audience. But that time there had been an obvious spell and this time Dean had no idea how he had ended up here.

There was a soft little snore from behind him. Dean turned to find Kevin sleeping there, dressed in a plaid shirt and a sling like Sam had worn back when Dean was being cured of being a demon. Actually… that was _exactly_ the shirt Sam had worn that day. What the…?

" _And the angels gonna play, play, play, play, play."_

The music paused, and mini-Cas was looking at something on a little screen, probably playback from the camera.

"Nice job," he – she – called out to the guys on stage. Who appeared to be dancers. Looked like some kind of music video. Not that Dean was any expert, since his preferred tunes were pre-MTV-era. And not that he had played any Taylor Swift vids from YouTube. No sir, not him.

"Okay, demons, you're up."

 _Demons?_ Freaking _demons_?

Mini-Cas turned. Well, that was pretty disturbing. He should have expected it, after girl-Cas from that freaking musical, but nope, it was still weird seeing that stubble on a girl. And her eyes weren't quite the right blue either. They were pretty, and Dean was kind of sure he would probably hit on her if she wasn't dressed up as Cas, but they weren't as clear and bright a blue as Cas' eyes.

"Hilly! You're awake. Come see the angel footage while I set these demons up."

"I… uh…"

"Is Osric awake yet?"

The Asian guy behind him shook his head, his dark eyes mischievous in a way Kevin's had never been.

"Uh, no," Dean said, earning himself a discrete thumbs up and a grin from 'Osric'. "Sleeping like a baby."

Mini-Cas rolled her eyes affectionately. "I swear he could sleep through a hurricane. You too." She frowned at Dean, which was so like Cas, but so not that he wanted to laugh. "You okay, Hilly? You still look kind of out of it."

Dean shook his head, which fortunately cleared a few cobwebs. "No, I'm okay."

He scrambled down to the little director's area. It wasn't as swish or slick as the arrangement had been on the set of ' _Supernatural_ ', that much was obvious, but the area around the two (only two!) chairs was clean and tidy. There was no litter of coffee cups, no piles and piles of paperwork; just the iPad and a binder that was currently open to… Ah, the amended lyrics, with some direction notes scribbled in the margins. Dean picked it up and read through, torn between horror and amusement as he did so. They were actually pretty cleverly done, he mused: it all fit beautifully with the song. There were even notes about scenes in an Impala for the choruses, where she was mentioned. The teenage part of his brain, the same part that was the closet geek, thought this was really awesome. Or it would be if his life was actually fictional, like it was in Balthazar's weird-ass world.

But he couldn't be back there, surely? Because their Cas – Misha? – had died while they were there, four years ago, so there was no way that even if they had carried on filming, even if they had kept Cas alive, that he would have been able to continue in the same vessel. Unless, of course, Misha had a twin brother. Which he supposed would be a possibility, however remote. So, given that mini-Cas still looked like his Cas, that left the possibility that this was an entirely different Bizarro Earth, where their lives still existed as freaking fiction of some variety. Probably TV, from the accuracy of that plaid shirt – Chuck's stories had never been _that_ exact about the specifics of their clothing. Beyond 'flannel' or 'plaid' or the occasional band t-shirt. But the TV show had them in the exact same freaking outfits on both sides of the looking glass, and a look down at Dean's current outfit showed a familiar looking red shirt (the fact there were boobs hiding under it notwithstanding).

Whatever this thing was, Dean was currently here alone, in a doll-sized body (although not as small as mini-Cas) and he was alone – no Sam, no Cas, no fairy godmother. So he figured the best thing to do was to wait it out and see what happened, who would appear to be his guide for this acid trip. And it was actually kind of fun, flicking through the footage with Heaven's tiniest fake angel, who turned out to be called Hannah, which was a bit trippy since he was positive the latest one of Cas' seemingly infinite number of siblings had been a Hannah too.

Dean was getting a feel for it, doing his scenes (a hell of a lot easier than actually having to act, since he was not only allowed to look at the camera, but encouraged to do so), enjoying the dancing. Osric finally hauled his lazy ass up, and it turned out he was hilarious and spilled so many on-set stories about this universe's Jared, Jensen and Misha that Dean felt he knew them well and would probably get on with them. Including some story from a convention in Italy where Jared and Osric had been wrestling and Jared had broken his shoulder on a coffee table, which had led to it being written into the script because Jared had still been recovering when they started filming. And it turned out that Osric was a really awesome Sam, totally over the top in his fussing over Dean. Even the scene they re-enacted Dean's death was fun to film.

The only not-fun part was when he scampered off for a bathroom break, which was not only completely freaksome when he looked in the mirror and saw a pint-sized version of himself looking back, but yeah, he never wanted to have to do that again. That was too deeply personal on a body that wasn't yours, and his hands automatically went to tuck himself back in and he had to spend a moment lamenting the loss of his dick once more.

He was a bit worried that being in such a tiny girl meant that meals would be more Sam's kind of thing than his but, as it turned out, apparently making a living dancing meant that Hilly and Hannah could eat all the pizza they liked.

It was a long day on set, but Dean had gone much longer on a job, and he was still kind of wired when Hannah finally called a wrap for the day. He was grinning from ear to ear, still shimmying to the dying strains of ' _Shake It Off_ '.

.oOo.

Dean awoke feeling good for the first time in a long, long time. For the first time in a long, long time, he didn't jerk awake but came to peacefully. He chuckled for a good minute, loving whatever and wherever that dream had come from. He had definitely needed something other than blood and guts and death. He sang in the shower (after checking to make sure his junk was firmly back where it should be), and was still humming as he and his plate of pancakes joined Sammy and Cas in the library.

"So, what's new?" he greeted them cheerfully. He plunked himself beside Sam and watched as the trusty laptop whirred into life, displaying a browser tab.

Dean busied himself with slicing off part of his stack as the laptop finished loading everything up, and then froze mid-chew as a distressingly familiar beat started up. Judging by the similar reactions of Sam and Cas, Dean hadn't been the only one enjoying a little break from reality last night.

He had been impressed with their set-dressing while he was there, but even more so in the video – it looked exactly like his room.

"So, you guys too, huh?" Dean asked conversationally.

There were noises of affirmation from both Sam and Cas. Which was a bit disturbing really, because Dean didn't even know that Cas was back to sleeping again. He found he was really against the idea of Cas sleeping – it didn't seem right. Cas was supposed to be immortal and powerful enough to stop Dean when the time came. Cas just… he wasn't supposed to sleep. That was human-level shit.

Suddenly, as suddenly as the intense dislike of the idea of Cas becoming fragile once more, came the distraction of the video, and Sam's grumbling.

"Hey, at least you got to keep your junk, Sammy," Dean reassured him. "Okay, Osric's. But you had junk. Me and Cas didn't."

Sam huffed a little, terse laugh. In bygone days, Sam would have jumped at the chance to tease Dean mercilessly about something, anything, and Dean had handed him that one on a freaking silver platter. Sam was getting far too hung up on everything. Dean found himself wondering exactly which parts Sam had been Osric for, and when Cas had been Hannah.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sam and Cas react to certain things. There were parts where Cas was smiling softly, affectionately, at Hilly's portrayal of Dean. Sam seemed too uptight to smile at all, but even so there were moments where his eyes seemed a little bit less wary than usual. He cringed when the Impala came on screen, and Dean realised that must have been 'his' scene. Cas scowled particularly viciously (for Cas) at the dodgeball scene that had Dean nodding along, reminiscing about how awesome he had felt that day, following in a long line of gym teachers in torturing the next generation. All of them stiffened when they saw Cain appear, then all of them reached out to pause the video at the same moment.

"That's…"

"Chuck Shurley," Cas said gravely. "Or rather, the actor who played him in that world."

It was hard to laugh at some parts, because it was so hard to separate them from reality. The fight with Cain had been one of the most harrowing moments of his life, Hell-time included. But the parts that were shadowing the music video were great – Dean really liked the image of him hula-hooping and ribbon dancing. Flipping Crowley off was a particular high point for him.

Then…

" _FUCKING GABRIEL!"_

"Dean, that is the actor who played Gabriel," Cas said with a hint of an exasperated sigh.

"You sure about that, little brother?"


End file.
